


Practical Uses For Your Government-Issued Colby Granger

by stop_the_fading



Series: Mission: Statistically Improbable [1]
Category: Criminal Minds, Numb3rs
Genre: Colby Granger is Not Expendable, Here There Be Cabbages, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Spencer Reid is an Accidental Badass, idek where it is in Criminal Minds but sometime before the whole kidnapping/drug addiction thinger, post Trust Metric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-21 05:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6039598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stop_the_fading/pseuds/stop_the_fading
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or: The One Where Spencer Reid Is Really More Of An Analyst, Thanks</p><p>:::</p><p>	His eyes smile again, and Spencer thinks that Colby Granger is either a very terrible spy, or a very good one. He really hopes that it's the latter, because he'd like to get home in one piece.</p><p>	His handler had said that he could trust Colby Granger. He really, really hopes that's true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

    "Attachment to the DoJ?" Morgan frowns, crossing his arms in a way that says to everyone in the office - because they're profilers, for god's sake - that he's unhappy with the level of 'need to know' floating around at present. "Doing what?"  
  
    Spencer looks at him, briefcase handle slipping slightly in his clammy grasp.  
  
    Nodding, Morgan sighs. "Right. Well...enjoy your time off, then."  
  
    "Somehow," Spencer quavers, eyes darting to the side even though he knows - he _knows_ \- that the CIA isn't really lurking behind the potted ferns to catch him giving away classified information, "I don't think it's going to be much of a vacation."  
  
:::  
  
    Megan grimaces as Colby tucks his sidearm into the back of his jeans. She hates it when the guys do that - just waiting on one of them to shoot their own ass off so she can collect her winnings from the betting pool, really - but says nothing. She's already told him what she thinks of him going off to do "specialty work" on "attachment to the DoJ". She knows from experience that it probably wasn't a request so much as a strong suggestion that should he want his life to remain relatively pleasant and uncomplicated, he'd best step up, but that doesn't stop her from hating the circumstances.  
  
    "Don't sweat it," he's telling David, who's peering at him, clearly irritated by his partner's apparent lack of sweating it. "It's just a protection detail."  
  
    The team looks around briefly, not really expecting some black ops sniper to take Colby out for his liberal interpretation of 'need to know' guidelines. At least, not seriously.  
  
    "I'll be there and back again in two weeks."  
  
    David mutters something about the Misty Mountain while everyone else politely pretends that A) David Sinclair isn't a huge nerd, and B) Colby Granger isn't spewing the most transparent bullshit any of them had seen since half the team had gotten food poisoning after their one and only Del Taco night. They hug Colby, wish him well, and wonder if he'll ever get the hang of saying 'no' to the United States government.  
  
    No one wonders if they'll ever see him again, because they know it's a slippery slope, and if Larry casually slips some kind of talisman courtesy of Brother Theo into Colby's desk drawer, no one comments.  
  
:::  
  
    The first thing Spencer notices about Colby Granger is that he has very little regard for the Bureau-approved sidearm carry regulations. He wonders if the other man had ever accidentally shot himself in the butt, then remembers that he's meant to be spending an indeterminate amount of time with this guy, probably in very close quarters, and even though gunshot wounds aren't particularly sexy, Spencer should definitely smother any wondering about his new partner's butt before it starts.  
  
    The second thing he notices are Colby Granger's eyes.  
  
    "Are you Broca's aphasia?" the larger man practically growls, leaning on the bar on one elbow with his head propped on his hand. "Because you leave me speechless."  
  
    That, Spencer knows, is the code. He has a sneaking suspicion that their handlers had snickered over it when they'd come up with it. It looks like Colby's eyes are laughing at him now - amused, as most would be, by the 'nerdy' pickup line.  
  
    Spencer thinks it's a bit crude, but orders are orders.  
  
    "I'm not really looking for a quick fuck," he replies swirling the neon green swizzle stick in his drink twice, clockwise, because he can actually follow orders no matter how crude or ridiculous he finds them.  
  
    Colby Granger's eyes are pretty, actually, but that's not what catches Spencer's attention. It's not a swooning, flirty thought, even though they are objectively a very intriguing color and a very aesthetically pleasing shape. He can definitely see the allure, but he's more concerned with the way Colby's eyes are smiling at him.  
  
    He's a profiler. He notices many things, and none are so basic as the way facial expressions reach a person's eyes. It's honest and open, in that well-scrubbed, good-old-country-boy way that Colby pulls off flawlessly. The accent is as lived-in as his jeans, and Spencer isn't happy about not knowing whether or not it's a cover.  
  
    "Me, either," the other man says, tapping on the countertop. Twelve dashes, three dots. Zero-zero-seven. "Wanna get out of here and try a slow fuck?"  
  
    His eyes smile again, and Spencer thinks that Colby Granger is either a very terrible spy, or a very good one. He really hopes, as he downs his drink for the look of things (and because it cost him seven dollars out-of-pocket - never let it be said that the government was loose with its accounts) and grabs his jacket, that it's the latter, because he'd like to get home in one piece.  
  
    Colby's hand slips into Spencer's back pocket, his arm strong and just slightly too warm across his back, and in spite of himself, Spencer lets his shoulders relax.  
  
    His handler had said that he could trust Colby Granger. He really, really hopes that's true.


	2. Human Shield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Colby always keeps himself between Spencer and pretty much everything, which is usually a full-time job, and Spencer is an accidental marksman.

    At first, Spencer finds Colby's insistence that he sit behind the genius on the motorcycle both awkward and bewildering. And uncomfortable. Incredibly uncomfortable.  
  
    It only takes him a few seconds - running over past interactions, past instances of Colby moving between Spencer and doorways, Spencer and windows, Spencer and that old lady at the supermarket who'd told him he looked like her granddaughter and tried to give him a Werther's - to realize that Colby is acting as a sort of buffer. He isn't really thrilled with the idea that Colby sees him as helpless, as an asset to protect rather than a partner or an equal, but it's a misconception that people have had about him his entire career, so he's somewhat used to it.  
  
    It doesn't stop their position on the motorcycle from being uncomfortable to the point of being just this side of painful. In all honesty, Spencer admits to himself as Colby leans into the turn so far that his elbow almost scrapes the sidewalk, it's a position that might've been uncomfortable for entirely different, less professional reasons had it not been for the distracting effect of their pursuers trying to kill them.  
  
    He knows that later, he'll remember the feeling of being pressed into the fuel tank, Colby using his upper body to force Spencer low, keeping his head down as far as possible. He knows it's a defensive gesture - Colby clearly fully prepared to catch as many bullets as needed to keep any of them from hitting Spencer - and not for the first time the genius wonders exactly what kind of debriefing the older man had gotten.  
  
    He knows Colby Granger was a military man. Army CID, could have made a career of it easily if it hadn't been for the CIA knocking on his door. Or, well, the creepy, underhanded, CIA equivalent of knocking on someone's door, which Spencer thinks probably involved Colby waking up in an underground bunker with a man in a suit thanking him for his interest in their organization and prying his hat size out of him with a pair of pliers.  
  
    Spencer has had a little experience with the CIA. Enough to know that they rarely bother with things so mundane as knocking on doors or being invited in or waiting for people to express an actual interest in working for them.  
  
    He'd mentioned this to Colby before, that first night they'd made contact, huddled in the bathtub while the walls were torn apart by machine gun fire. Colby'd laughed, told Spencer that if someone shows an interest in the CIA they probably end up melted in a vat of acid. The people who work for the CIA don't apply, he'd said. They're recruited.  
  
    Spencer wonders how Colby was recruited. He wonders if joining the FBI had even been his own idea. Spencer's smart. He knows that people don't really leave the CIA, no matter what they put on their applications.  
  
    He also wonders, as they bank around a taxi, which of those organizations had made Colby so self-sacrificing. He wants to think it was probably the military, but he can't get his handler's words out of his head.  
  
    'He's to get you to the head of the organization, quietly. That is his only purpose, and you'd best let him do it.'  
  
    A crate of cabbages kind of explodes as the P90 rounds hit it. Spencer thinks they've maybe botched the 'quietly' part a little.  
  
    He risks a glance in the left hand mirror. The right one is missing, scraped off against the side of a cargo truck during the kind of evasive maneuver Spencer had only seen in Morgan's favorite kinds of action flicks. Their pursuers are bearing down on them, keeping close as possible even though they tend to corner a little wider and have been sideswiped more than once by innocent commuters. There's a nondescript white man standing up through the sunroof holding a machine gun.  
  
    Spencer wonders what's happened to the police that had been in pursuit since two towns over, but he's pretty sure they'd lost them a while back.  
  
    He focuses on the road in front of them and notices several things.  
  
    One, they're headed for a bridge, which is not exactly conducive to evasive maneuvering being that it's fairly straight and has no buildings or cross-streets or hapless vendors of produce to make use of.  
  
    Two, Colby's pushing him further down in anticipation of them running out of cover, and even though Spencer knows he's wearing a bulletproof vest, he also knows that it's still a vest, and that many parts of Colby are still vulnerable to gunshot (such as, just for example, his entire head).  
  
    Three, the SUV gaining ground on them is also running out of cover and is pretty much driving at them in a straight line, which is bad for Colby and Spencer, but also bad for the SUV and its occupants because straight lines extend forever _in both directions_.  
  
    He knows Colby will laugh when he gives him that reasoning for his incredibly foolish stunt later, because Colby knows a mathematician and finds those sorts of things very amusing as a result.  
  
    He curses Morgan's action flicks for giving him the inadvisable idea in the first place, but he doesn't allow himself to think further than that on all the ways this could go wrong and starts to push back against Colby, elbows flailing a little and miraculously not getting shot off as he struggles to turn himself around.  
  
    On a motorcycle.  
  
    Traveling at one hundred thirty-two miles per hour.  
  
    Over a bridge.  
  
    While being shot at.  
  
    (He plans to heckle the entirety of Morgan's movie collection when he goes home, because it's so much unrealistic bullshit, and he holds on to that goal fiercely because it's better than thinking about his brain being scraped across the asphalt.)  
  
    Colby, to his credit, simply continues to weave in a serpentine pattern across the bridge, shifting his body so that he can keep Spencer covered as the younger man scrabbles for his own sidearm.  
  
    His plan is pretty stupid.  
  
    Tucking his face up against Colby's neck, he threads his arms down under Colby's left arm. The position is awkward but he knows that if he tries to move into a more exposed position Colby will manhandle him back down. Which, you know, is not something Spencer needs to be thinking about at the moment. He needs to focus on compensating for the less-than-ideal position and his already-lamentable aim.  
  
    He's pretty much never had a worse plan.  
  
    'Front sight,' he thinks, wondering how many shots it might take him to get this right. 'Trigger press-'  
  
    Oh. Wow.  
  
    As the front left tire kind of explodes like the cabbages had, Spencer tucks himself further behind Colby and watches as the SUV careens into the safety railing at high speed, flips over it, and falls into the bay.  
  
    "Follow through," he mutters, blinking a couple of times.  
  
    He feels Colby's laughter against his cheek and fumbles his sidearm away. "Nice shot," the man rumbles into Spencer's ear.  
  
    Spencer opens his mouth, coughs, then admits, "I was aiming for the sunroof guy."  
  
    Colby laughs again. Spencer doesn't bother to turn back around, just hunches down like he knows Colby wants him to and tries to make his hands stop shaking.  
  
    They stop for provisions at a 7-11 (and trade out their Ducati for a rusty old Dodge Charger, which Colby makes weirdly maternal cooing noises over), and Spencer pretends he doesn't notice Colby moving around him like a growly satellite, eyes on the glass doors of the freezer items, on the jars that line the shelves, on the lenses of the sunglass display, always watching. Spencer notes the techniques down anyway, because there's no such thing as a useless skill.  
  
    Colby puts himself behind Spencer as they pay, not between Spencer and the door, or Spencer and the cashier, and even though it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up - because _why_ is he doing that, what's behind Spencer that Colby needs to protect him from - he doesn't say anything. He totals up their purchases absently and accepts the receipt and they leave, Colby pushing Spencer in front of him and through the driver-side door, slipping in and forcing Spencer to flail across the bench seat like a baby deer skittering across a patch of ice. They pull out, and even though he looks, really _looks_ , Spencer can't see any kind of threat.  
  
    The next safe house is two hundred miles away, so Spencer settles low in the seat, folding himself up awkwardly, and pops open a tube of Pringles. He wonders if maybe it wasn't the Army or the CIA or the FBI. If maybe Colby was just born to stand between people and the things that want to hurt them.  
  
    It shouldn't be a comforting thought, but it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should note here that I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable about Criminal Minds as I am about NUMB3RS, and I'm sure it shows, so if you see anything wrong with my characterizations, please let me know!
> 
> Up next: Colby Granger is not a talker, not a spook, and not a space heater, but he can do a good impression of two out of three of those things.


	3. Space Heater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Colby might actually be a fire-based supernatural creature of some kind, and Spencer can't help but babble before bed.

    They've only really known each other for fifty-two hours, and Spencer can already tell that Colby Granger has issues.  
  
    Spencer can feel his thin shirt sticking to his back, and he struggles to keep some distance between himself and Colby as the larger man's weight dips the terrible mattress. He radiates heat like a sunlamp, leaving Spencer feeling sticky and claustrophobic. The agent doesn't so much as twitch when Spencer's shoulder brushes against him, and Spencer sighs for what feels like the millionth time since Colby had started shoving the bed up against the wall.  
  
    "How long have you been in the CIA?" Spencer murmurs.  
  
    He's not expecting an answer - not really - but the part of him that's still largely a nervous, awkward kid within punching distance of a much larger kid is gnawing at him, forcing words from his mouth before the more rational, grown-up side of him can tell him to shut up.  
  
    Colby's not a talker. Or, Spencer amends, if he is it's in his off hours, when there aren't very skilled agents from several different organizations vying to hunt them down, torture them, kill them, then bury them in some remote location. Probably in that order, Spencer thinks, but one can never be sure. Since their exchange of carefully constructed and vaguely offensive code phrases and the brief 'this is what we're gonna do' discussion that had followed, though, Colby hasn't said much of anything save for giving a couple of short, concise orders, seemingly content to leave Spencer to his thoughts and focus on keeping them both alive.  
  
    Not a goal Spencer scoffs at.  
  
    The agent has ignored most of Spencer's rambling up to this point, nodding once in a while to show he's listening but making no attempts to contribute his own thoughts - Spencer had been talking about the basics of breaking someone psychologically, though, Interrogation 101, so he supposes Colby hadn't had much to add. He's pretty sure Colby's going to ignore this, as well, until the man finally shifts a little. Spencer grips the edge of the bed to keep from rolling closer to his partner.  
  
    "M'not in the CIA."  
  
    Spencer blinks at the stain on the wall - signs of water damage that look more than a little like blooming waterlilies - and hesitates. "You were...never a CIA agent?"  
  
    "No."  
  
    "...would you also say that if you were one?"  
  
    A soft snort, and Colby shifts again. "Probably." There's a moment of silence, and as though he can hear Spencer's neurons firing, he coughs a little. "I'm a Feeb, kid. Different brand of crazy. Why'd you think I was CIA?"  
  
    "It was, uh...strongly implied. By my, um...my handler."  
  
    Colby snorts. "I'm sure. Got their fingers in everything - wouldn't be a bit surprised if they'd made use of some FBI op or other for their own purposes. That count, you think?"  
  
    "You were a spy," Spencer says quietly.  
  
    The silence is longer this time. "Yeah," Colby answers eventually, tightly.  
  
    "You don't like that word." It's not a question.  
  
    "Not really." He shifts yet again. "But I've been called worse."  
  
    Spencer shuffles his profile of Colby around a little, slotting these new pieces of his partner into place carefully. FBI Counterintelligence, then. But...  
  
    "Why'd the CIA call you for this, then?"  
  
    A rough motion that was probably a shrug. Spencer's stomach squirms.  
  
    "Why they call you, Doc?" Colby returns.  
  
    Spencer swallows roughly. "Because I'm good at what I do."  
  
    "And what's that?"  
  
    "Empathizing," he replies honestly.  
  
    It isn't as though he doesn't know what the Agency wants him to do. They'd explained, in fact, in great detail. And even if they hadn't - well, Spencer is objectively very intelligent, and capable of forming conclusions of his own. All he'd really needed to hear was that there's a potential asset who has been adamantly refusing to assist the United States government; he'd quickly deduced the rest.  
  
    He's not sure how he feels about it is all. If someone wants to be left alone to live their life, Spencer doesn't really feel it's necessary to go around twisting arms, even metaphorically.  
  
    'If we don't,' his handler had said, 'someone else will. And they won't be very nice about it.'  
  
    Politics, Spencer groans inwardly, resisting the urge to kick his side of the blanket off because he knows he'll just be cold in moments if he does.  
  
    "I suppose I'm good at what I do, too," Colby hums thoughtfully.  
  
    Curiosity wells up, and Spencer lets himself shift closer, hoping the show of trust will lower Colby's defenses further. "Which is...?"  
  
    Colby huffs, bemused, and it jostles Spencer out of his precarious position, his shoulder blades pressing tight against Colby's back. "Needlepoint."  
  
    Spencer pauses. "That's a joke, right?"  
  
    "Seriously?"  
  
    "You're hard to read," Spencer admits. "I have to admit, your background in counterintelligence makes it difficult for me to work out which of your tells is genuine and which is manufactured. Well," he amends when Colby's shoulders twitch, "I'm working off the assumption that you're skilled at this due to the fact that you've survived thus far and the fact that the CIA has, um...recruited you to work on this with me. It could be that you're a terrible spy," he finishes with a little grin that he knows Colby can probably hear.  
  
    The answering laughter shakes him a little, and the movement makes him shiver more.  
  
    "Cold?" Colby pulls more blanket up and around Spencer and practically shoves him face-first into the wall as he presses closer to share body heat.  
  
    "Has anyone ever told you that you lack boundaries?" Spencer's nervous mouth spews before he can stop it.  
  
    Cold seeps between them as Colby puts a few inches back between them, and now Spencer shivers for real. "Sorry," the larger man says.  
  
    "No, no," Spencer says quickly, his voice cracking as he shoves words out. "It's understandable for someone who'd been in the military. I mean, lack of personal space and conformity to the idea that a soldier is a part of a whole rather than an individual does tend to deconstruct some boundaries that society otherwise imposes about privacy and bodily autonomy."  
  
    He listens to Colby's quiet breaths. When he's counted fifteen full breaths, Colby shrugs again. "I guess."  
  
    He wonders what Colby thinks about during these pauses and wishes he could see the man's face, his body language, something to go with the careful tone of voice.  
  
    Colby isn't a mystery, exactly. Spencer can tell many things about him - the region of the country he's from, for example. Probably from a military family. Trained in urban warfare. Honorable discharge, probable that it involved an injury in the line of duty. Went on to join the FBI instead of returning to the American Northwest to settle down. And something had happened in between, something important, that had defined the next several years of Colby's life. Something that had made him willing to live a lie, to live multiple lies, for several years.  
  
    "Hey," Colby rumbles him out of his thoughts suddenly. "Bet our last package of Sno Balls that you can't name a seven-digit prime."  
  
    "One million, three hundred seventeen thousand, one hundred thirty-one," Spencer rattles off absently, eyelids fluttering.  
  
    Colby makes a strangely motherly 'tsk' sort of sound. "Damn. I can't escape it, can I?"  
  
    "Hmm?"  
  
    "Nothing, Doc. Get some sleep. We've got a lotta road to cover."  
  
    Spencer hums. "S'also a palindrome."  
  
    "I got that." Colby moves, leaning over the side of the bed it seems, and Spencer can't be bothered to stop himself rolling a little until they're back-to-back again. He can hear the sound of the bedside drawer, and then Colby's leaning back, his broad shoulders shoving Spencer aside, making room. It puts Spencer in mind of a cat - the pushy kind that ends up in the middle of the bed while its human dangles precariously at the edge by morning.  
  
    His dreams are fragmented, full of cats on motorcycles and exploding heads that won't stop listing palindromic primes, and he wakes up mid-morning curled against Colby's spine, forehead pressed between his partner's shoulder blades, sweat slicking his hair against his neck in an itchy sort of way. Colby's like a furnace, heat rolling off him in stifling waves, but Spencer has always hated the chill. He grasps at Colby's damp tee-shirt sleepily and lets his dreams drag him under again.  
  
    When he wakes up next, it's to the chill of early evening. He burrows under the blankets with a groan and a shudder, and blinks blearily at Colby as the man polishes off the last of the Snow Balls.  
  
    "Cheater," he rasps.  
  
    Colby grins. "Early bird, Doc," he replies, eyes glittering in the dim evening light. "C'mon, get yourself sorted out, we're gonna move out in an hour."  
  
    Groaning again, Spencer smushes his face against the cold pillowcase. He doesn't watch Colby methodically go over the room, wiping down every surface, leaving nothing behind. He definitely doesn't watch the play of his back underneath his shirt and try to dredge up the memory of that almost stifling heat, because that wouldn't be conducive to getting up at all.  
  
    Catching his gaze, Colby rolls his eyes and throws Spencer's bag at him. Spencer doesn't even bother trying to catch it, and it bounces when it hits the mattress right beside him.  
  
    "Thirty minutes now, Doc," Colby says, settling into the chair by the window, eyes already searching the outside world for threats, openings, what have you. "Get moving."  
  
    Throwing off the blanket, Spencer digs into his bag for his toothbrush. "I like you better when you're a space heater," his tired brain cranks out.  
  
    Colby laughs before he can take it back. "I bet you do, Doc. I just bet you do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that a potential plot point I see lurking? Hmm...
> 
> I promise, it'll all make sense...eventually.
> 
> Probably.
> 
> Up next: Colby's brain might work a little wonky sometimes, but Spencer can't really talk. Also, snack cakes.


End file.
